Title: Re: John Merrit's closing argument PART2 ....
Author: Arnie Lerma <www.lermanet.com <Arnie_member@newsguy.com
Date: 1 Jul 2000 17:11:58 -0700


John Merritt's closing argument

excerpted from court transcript

Your Honor, in today’s proceedings, Scientology, in all its incarnations, has
gone on record as being purely and simply no more and no less than an enemy of
God-given rights that are guaranteed under the United States Constitution.

You heard the testimony of the selected representative of Scientology
organization, and her testimony under oath was that what she wished enjoined was
the exposure of the adherents of her organization to words and ideas which they
find offensive. Your Honor, that was her testimony, almost word for word. There
are many prices that we pay for living in a democracy. There’s a lot of prices
for it. One of my favorite judges back home has a sign on the wall that says,
“The price of our liberty is slavery to the law.” Another price of living in a
democracy is the exposure to ideas that we find offensive, the exposure to ideas
that we find hateful or even hurtful.

It is more telling than anything that I could have wished for that the statement
of Scientology’s representative was simply that: We don’t want our people
exposed to this speech. There was no evidence of any injury to anybody, no
complaint of any injury to anybody, only the fact that the free flow of
information has penetrated, to one degree or another, a bubble that Scientology
seeks to put around its adherents. And that, Your Honor, while it may violate
Mr. Hubbard’s principles, is exactly what the First Amendment is there for.

It is to insure that, at least in the public areas of life, there is a free
marketplace of ideas. Scientology is certainly welcome to keep its acolytes
sheltered from the news and sheltered from the words of non-Scientologists on
its own property, inside its own building, behind its blacked-out windows down
on Cleveland Street, but it has no right to insist that other people forego
the exercise of fundamental rights in order them in the preservation of that
closseted for their adherents.

That is obscene.


[snip a dry section]

All that you have heard offered to you as a basis for a modification of this
injunction is the fact that Scientology still doesn’t want its people to hear
from anybody who hasn’t been filtered through their organization. That’s not a
change in circumstances at all.

And if there’s any doubt in the Court’s mind that the extension of the
injunction would constitute a modification requiring that showing under the
applicable equitable maxims, Paragraph of the amended temporary injunction of
December 2nd says, quote, “This amended temporary injunction shall be in full
force and effect for 180 days from, this, the 2nd day of December 1999, or as
modified by further order of this Court.”

Mr. Howie’s point is well taken. Mr. Howd, who lest we forget is the Petitioner,
the invisible Mr. Howd, is the Petitioner, that he came here and asked for
plenary relief. He asked for a permanent injunction. A full hearing was held on
the merits. And the Court said, having heard all of that evidence, that what
was warranted was an injunction for a period of six months and no more. An
extension of the time frame is obviously a modification of the injunction. They
have utterly failed to present any evidence in support of that.

And I realize that I tread on shaky ground, which is probably all right because,
Judge, I’m from up near the Okefenokee, and I think you know that that means
shaking ground.

If the fact is that Mr. Howd wants an injunction that protects Scientologists at
large as they go about their business, the place that he needs to look is to
some legislative body, not to the Court.

You are being asked more clearly than I could ever have imagined to engage in
judicial legislation, to simply state, here are the laws for walking the streets
of Clearwater: If you know Bob Minton, if you’re affiliated with the Lisa
McPherson Trust or if you just don’t like Scientology, here are the rules.

Mr. Howie said that this thing has taken on a life of its own. Your Honor, I
suggest that there is a more apt metaphor, and that is that this thing has
metastasized because you began with a situation where one man claimed that
another man gave him a poke in the eye and so there was an injunction. We ended
up, then, with an injunction that banned the poker from any of seventeen places
that the pokee might or might not turn up.

Then the injunction is expanded to apply those same restraints to a corporation
and three other people who are alleged to be somehow connected with the poker. I
think that’s clearly metastasization rather than growth or rejuvenation.

The people whom I’m here to represent -- the Lisa McPherson Trust, Mr. Prince,
Mr. Ward and Mr. Bunker -- have never committed any act which is in any way
violative of any law or of anyone’s rights, yet they stand and have stood since
February of this year under your gavel having never done anything wrong, having
never threatened anyone, having never touched anyone, having never done anything
but offend against the Scientological principle that free speech must be
quashed.

And your gavel was raised in defense of that principle, Your Honor. How that
ended up happening, I don’t know, but it is undeniable that you have three
people who are absolutely innocent as far as any material issue in this case
who stand under the threat of contempt of court for exercising what would
otherwise be unmistakable, un-arguable rights under the constitution.


A second legal point that I want to suggest to the Court is this: There is a
case, which I hope I can find, that I think sheds some significant light on the
question of what is meant by agents of one who is enjoined. And the inquiry
which is obviously mandated by this case, which is at present -- it looks like
Mr. Howd may have it.

I apologize, Your Honor. I will try to find it for you and send it to you. What
it stands for is the principle -- and I may find it when I sit down during the
rebuttal; and if so, I will give it to you. It involves a Rent-a-Car company,
and the issue was whether or not the injunction that prohibited the
Rent-a-Car company from using the broadcast system in the airport to pick up its
passengers in violation of a noncompete agreement also prohibited the airport
itself from paging passengers, from saying, “Mr. Penick, your cab
is at the curb,” or, “Mr. Penick, your car is ready,” when it was this enjoined
company’s automobile that was being
presented.

And the appellate court held, no, obviously, that language about extension of
the terms of the injunction to the agents of the person who is named and
enjoined extends to persons who are agents for the purposes of the act that is
enjoined.

Now, you can rent cars by proxy. You can announce the rental of cars by proxy.
Mr. Minton, whatever else he’s able to do, is not able to exercise his First
Amendment rights by proxy. First Amendment rights are, by their very nature,
personal rights. If my wife pickets Scientology, she can’t, by definition, be my
agent. She’s acting in the fulfillment and the exercise of her rights
and no one else’s, as is anybody who protests against any organization.

The case that has been presented to you today is legally woefully inadequate.
And in other litigation that is flying around the bay at present, we hear
repeatedly arguments and statements about a certain case being a scam, being a
sham, somebody else not being the real party.

Well, Judge, I would urge you, I would beg you to consider this: Richard Howd
was never certified as a class representative for anybody. Richard Howd has
never been recognized as a proxy for any organization. Richard Howd has no
standing, according to the testimony you heard from that stand today, no
standing in any supervisory capacity over anybody in any Scientology
organization. He is an individual. He is a peon at the bottom of the Scientology
totem pole. And, somehow, this case has, as I said, metastasized until Richard
Howd’s demand for relief from getting poked in the nose turns into a prohibition
of other people offending Scientology at large.

Your Honor, you have heard nothing which suggests any relief at all that ought
to be granted Richard Howd. Ask yourself that question, Your Honor: What is it
that I need to do for Richard Howd, the Petitioner, in this case, based on what
I have heard? What does he need? What does he need to feel safe? What’s happened
to him in the last six months? The answer is you don’t know because this case
has been high-jacked.

You’re not being asked to deal with the party to the case. You’re not being
asked to respond to the needs and the desires of the Petitioner. You’re being
asked to respond to the needs and the desires of a non-party. And, you know, if
Scientology wants to step up to the plate, if Scientology wants to come forward
and say in its own name, we hate speech, we hate freedom, we demand silence,
maybe they can; but there is absolutely no sort of analysis which would
authorize that in this case because they’re not even a party.

Judge, the bottom line is there is no way that you can grant any relief to
Richard Howd based on what you’ve heard today. And I will leave you with one
last thought, Judge. Who prosecuted John Peter Zenger? What was that
guy’s name? Nobody knows, Judge. We remember John Peter Zenger and we remember
those nameless jurymen who went to jail in defense of free speech because that
is the fabric of this country.

Thank you.





I'd prefer to die speaking my mind than live fearing to speak.
The only thing that always works in scientology are its lawyers
The internet is the liberty tree of the 90's
http://www.lermanet.com - mentioned 4 January 2000 in
The Washington Post's - 'Reliable Source' column re "Scientologist with no HEAD"